Time again for your weekly dose of what's funny, freaky and just downright weird
on the Web.
Japanese Engrish
This site seemed excreedingly slow today but it's really worth the wait. If you've
ever bought a piece of consumer-electronics of oriental manufacture and marveled
at the creative spelling and grammar then this is the site for you.
How To Write Unmaintainable Code
There are a few programmers for who this comes naturally -- the rest of us will
have to study this page if we are to improve our levels of obfuscation.
Unspeakably Stupid Stories
There are hours of reading on this page. Spend a little while here and you'll
soon find yourself believing that you are smarter than the average Net-user.
Imagine If...
Content-based sites which rely on advertising to generate their revenues are
in deep pooh right now.
Even the big-boys like CNN, NewsCorp, Disney and many others are laying off
staff and scaling back their costs significantly as advertisers come to the
realisation that advertising on the Net isn't quite the great investment
they thought it was.
Banner-ads are going unclicked all over the Web and this has effectively
destroyed the model on which such sites are based.
Like many web-surfers, I take a smug satisfaction on virtually never clicking
on those grotty little patches of advertising material -- especially when they
are using powerful Flash animations so that they distract the eye from the
real purpose for one's visit to a page.
However, maybe it's time we climbed down from our high horses and realised
that if we don't put in a few extra clicks each time we go surfing then
it could be that the quality and quantity of content on the Web may start
to decline.
Now imagine if everyone surfing the web took the time to click on just
two banner ads during each browsing session. If we assume that the average
browsing session lasts 45 minutes and during that time we see 25 banners then
clicking on two of them would boost the average click-through rate from
its present level of about half of one percent to around eight percent -- a
16-fold increase.
This simple act of self-interest on the part of those who enjoy the ad-funded
content they find on the web could turn the whole industry around and re-ignite
the massive growth we saw in such sites just 18 months ago.
What do you reckon? Is it worth a minute of your time each day to preserve
the quality of the material we find on the Net?
As always, your comments are welcomed.
The Weekly Is Downloadable
If you haven't received your Aardvark Weekly by email, you can
download it here. Subscribers
to the emailed version will get each version several days before it appears
here.
As always, your feedback is welcomed.
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